For this short activity I wanted the children to recognise and identify different body parts by decorating them! I used a few new materials such as stamps and scented pens.
Archive
From 23rd until 23th I was on a training scheme run by Martin Goodwin. It was organised by ATHAC (Access to Heritage Arts and Culture) and held at Centre of The Earth. It didn’t really have a title, so here’s a list of each section that was covered:
- Disability, Equality and Law
- You and Community Education
- Working with People
- Advocacy, Participation and Self-Determination
What I really liked about the course is that it was very practical. Sure, when you’re discussing the law you’ll have to quote long pieces of text and that can be a bit boring, but then there’s not really anyway of getting around it. The other activities were great and a lot of the information was very useful.
One thing I’ve always been interested in is how to communicate with people who don’t communicate verbally. As I found out on the course there isn’t one strict way in which to do it but what you can do is try a variety of ways and see which method generates the most response. Even if you don’t get the desired response as long as there is a response it can be worked on to generate a better way of communicating with them.
On another day we explored a range of play activities, which was lead by Helen Blackemore. Even though each activity wasn’t suited to every ability what was useful was that we discussed different ways to accommodate each ability.
From the course I’ve been thinking about different ways to deliver workshops. One of the things I’ve done is to explore smell and creating work responding to different smells. It’s hard to separate lots of smells in a small room but I have found that some of the children really identify with a certain smell. I also have explored some different ways of mark making. One of them was drawing with cars, which was great as it added something a usual play activity.
Last Wednesday was the final session in in the Pipe Up workshosps.
Pipe Up is an education project run by THSH that focusses on the pipe organ and encourages the students to create a video/animation and music piece that is centered around the theme of the pipe organ.
Although this project has been going for years it was my first time assisting in the delivery of it. Hopefully the work can be shown soon!
I attended the Digital Play course run by Playtrain recently. Even though there’s only so much you can learn in a single-day course this course really did give me a lot of ideas on what to do with multimedia in the workshop environment.
I know that sometimes the idea of introducing computers into teaching can seem daunting! Computers are pretty unstable, so add children and pressure into the mix and it’s a potential recipe for disaster! This course really did show me that multimedia doesn’t have to be all that confusing and some of the simplest technology can have the greatest effect.
Here’s one of the pieces I produced:
It’s not fancy, but for children, and even the people attending the workshop it was really really fun, and I think that’s one of the more important things about education and learning.
I was recently able to sit in on a universities Student Union meeting. One of the topics of discussion was their frustration that their course didn’t actually focus on the topic it should’ve. For example, almost everyone in the room has had to a basic web design module, even if they’re doing something like journalism or art. The university’s excuse for this is that soon everyone will have to have a website. I kinda understand their reasoning, as the web is playing an important part in just about everything, but shouldn’t the course focus on the topic at hand?
I can understand this reasoning if a journalism student was study online journalism or if an art student was making a web based project, but to teach web design ‘just in case’ seems like something that is more likely to irritate and frustrate people on the course.
I think a review of why subjects are taught is in order.
Something that I saw some time ago on the artsjobs mailing list but forgot to post. It’ll be great for workshop deliverers and anyone else involved in learning (perhaps you, Bobbie?):
Supported by Black Country Creative Partnerships: Soapbox is an informal space where creative practitioners who work in learning can meet up with each other to:
- question, ponder, debate and wonder
- get inspired, irritated, encouraged, creative
- connect up, catch up, talk through what’s up and simply meet up
Soapbox is a space for creative practitioners who work in learning to share and learn from each other in an open and honest way. It’s a space to reflect upon our own creative thinking and practice. It’s about us doing something for ourselves and it will run for as long as it proves useful to sufficient numbers of us to keep it going.
To suss out if it’s something for you, come along to our first session on:
TUESDAY 8TH APRIL (6.00-8.00pm)
Atticus Bar, 113/114 Three Shire Oak Road,
Bearwood, Birmingham, B67 5BT (Google map)This session will be started by Noel Dunne, freelance producer and creative agent who’ll be exploring the question: ‘Do we know our own value?’
Confirm your attendance by e-mailing Janine Millington on janine.millington@wlv.ac.uk. See y’all there!
Here’s a image from a workshop I delivered as part of a group on the topic of Culture in relation to Birmingham. It was a big project, so we decided to collaborate online, which proved very useful!
Flying Start is now over and, due to a lack of funding, looks like it will completely end after five years 
It’s a real shame that funding has affected what is quite an essential course for budding community artists. The only other one I’ve seen is one at Staffordshire University but, unlike Flying Start, you have to pay for it.
The course has been of great benefit to me! Prior to it I had just graduated and had only done a bit of work in schools thanks to the Student Associates Scheme. Thanks to the course I now feel a lot more prepared to work in schools and the community on small and big projects! Check out more information on my workshops here.
Also, for all you budding workshops deliverers, here’s a useful pdf booklet about delivering workshops